Elastic electron scattering from the DNA bases cytosine and thymine

Abstract

Cross-section data for electron scattering from biologically relevant molecules are important for the modeling of energy deposition in living tissue. Relative elastic differential cross sections have been measured for cytosine and thymine using the crossed-beam method. These measurements have been performed for six discrete electron energies between 60 and 500 eV and for detection angles between 15 • and 130 • . Calculations have been performed via the screen-corrected additivity rule method and are in good agreement with the present experiment.

Electron transport in DNA bases: An extension of the Geant4-DNA Monte Carlo toolkit

“…As for differential cross section, the integrated elastic cross section in water is one order of magnitude lower than in the DNA bases. [38] and lines are calculations [38][39][40][41]).…”

“…There are few studies that calculated elastic differential cross sections for DNA bases and no experimental data is available apart from the single study by Colyer et al [38] where only thymine and cytosine differential cross sections were measured for six discrete incident electron energies between 60 eV and 500 eV and scattering angles between 15° and 130°. Other studies calculated theoretical differential cross sections for the four bases [38][39][40][41] using different approximations. Colyer et al [38] provided theoretical values for cytosine and thymine, and Blanco et al [41] provided theoretical values for adenine only.…”

“…Other studies calculated theoretical differential cross sections for the four bases [38][39][40][41] using different approximations. Colyer et al [38] provided theoretical values for cytosine and thymine, and Blanco et al [41] provided theoretical values for adenine only. Apart from the study of Mokrani et al, which calculated cross sections in the 10 eV -5 MeV [40], these studies are limited to low energy ranges (50 -4000 eV [39] and 5 -10000 eV [41]).…”

Experimental and theoretical study of the triple-differential cross section for electron-impact ionization of thymine molecules

“…In these studies elastic cross sections for all of the DNA and RNA bases were calculated, differential in both energy and in angle. Relative elastic differential cross sections (DCS) for thymine and cytosine have also recently been measured experimentally using the crossed beam method [16]. Triple-differential cross sections, however, provide the most complete information about the details of the ionization of atomic and molecular targets, which is essential to modeling the deposition of energy in biological matter.…”

Low-energy electron collisions with the alanine molecule

“…These observations have stimulated significant interest in electron-molecule collisions with small biomolecules and the constituents of larger one, with particular emphasis on characterizing the resonance states of these systems. There are many studies of electron collisions with DNA building blocks [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] such as amino acids [10][11][12][13][14][15], nucleobase [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33], sugar and phosphate moieties [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43].…”